Sinner --- before I discuss the movie "Sin City", know that I am not recommending the movie to anyone - that would be far too risky a recommendation.

The "funk" from my last post was helping to prepare me for seeing this film. It's a stylized (mostly black & white, with comic book effects) representation of the ultimate city of sin.

The characters are corrupt politicians, perverse cops, prostitutes, thieves, rapists, killers, drug addicts, etc. and that's putting it as mildly as I can imagine

Needless to say, it was a horrendously difficult movie to watch, especially for a danio. I only saw it because I was with friends and didn't know anything about it (and somehow the title didn't dissuade me)

Although I left the theatre disturbed, shocked and worried, some hours having elapsed, clarity seems to emerge, strangely. I'm started to wonder if all of that sex and gore was really so gratuitous.

You see, the problem is that, even though the protagonists were trying to do good, they were, by most standard respects, bad people. Except that I've been thinking the opposite now: even though they were bad people, they were trying to do good. So even if the "heroes" lied, killed, and otherwise abused others in disturbing ways, the image that remains is that of their inner light, their struggle to overcome all adversities, including those imposed by their own selves.

It really feel that in the end, what stands out in this bleak and depraved world depicted here, it's the distant, glimmering spark of light that retains its resonance, especially in the face of such looming odds. This could be due to my own perspective, but it's at least in part, if not entirely, the goal of the creators of this movie.

We live in such a dark time that it takes a movie that gruesome to hint at the atrocity of our current world.

These two quotes from the Baha'i Writings hint at a similar theme:



"All that are on earth shall pass away, while good deeds alone shall endure; to the truth of My words God doth Himself bear witness." (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 44)



"Shouldst thou step a little way into the worlds of severance, thou wilt testify that no day greater than this Day and no resurrection mightier than this Resurrection can be imagined, and that one deed in this Day is equivalent to deeds performed during a hundred thousand years -- nay, I ask pardon of God for this limitation, because deeds done in this Day are sanctified beyond any limited reward." (Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 37)



For many years I have struggled with my own humility, as mentioned in my previous post. It is always the case that by just shifting my perspective, I realize that I am no better - in fact, that I am much lesser - than those I come in contact with throughout my life. For they are struggling much more than I am, in many cases. This is why I am never in a place to judge. But how do I live in a way that reaches upward toward the standards set by my Lord without putting up barriers between myself and others? Why are none of my friends or even acquaintances thieves, prostitutes or killers?

God alone can soften my heart, so the battle is always the same: to make my heart the home of none other than God.

What a world we live in, which is both so perfect and so confused...